There is a lot of information about there about how to use social media to improve your chances of getting a job. How do you know which information is really useful? You might find a recent article I found to be interesting. The author includes 7 tips to give your career a social media facelift. Check out the following from b2cmarketinginsider.com:

Not on social media platforms? Think again!

You or the content you’ve created may be on social media networks without you even knowing it. Here are a few examples where you’re popping up on the social media landscape.

Are you in photos with family, friends and/or colleagues? If so, they may appear on Facebook, Flickr or Twitter.

Have you dined with others or run into friends at your favorite watering hole? If so, unknowingly, you may have been included in their Foursquare updates.

Do you write for any online or offline media entity? If so, your content may be shared on a wide variety of social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others.

Have you presented at a conference or been part of an event’s panel? If so, you’re probably including in someone’s tweets, live blogging, video or other form of content sharing.

Does your firm have a presence on LinkedIn? If so, your bio may already be posted.

To read the rest of the article, click here: b2cmarketinginsider.com. In that article you will find 7 steps to help you build your social media presence to effectively represent your marketing experience and prowess.

For more information about using social media to help you get that job, see:

Have you ever wondered how important it was to pick the right major in college. You might be surprised by the choices made by some very successful people. You can find out what college majors some very successful people chose, including Ted Turner, Steve Wynn, Michael Dell, Michael Eisner, Martha Stewart and more. Check out an article about 9 brilliant business minds and their totally irrelevant college majors by clicking here: OEDB.org.

If you are looking for a job, you probably have looked at getting on LinkedIn and some other social networking sites. If you have created a LinkedIn profile, it should show up on Google’s search engine.

In some recent talks I gave to job-seekers, I asked my audience if they had Googled themselves. Surprisingly, not as many people as you may think have done this. In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I discuss the importance of Googling your name to see what it displays. You can be sure that employers will do this.

It is nice that search engines like Google can help people find you. One way to help improve being found is to be on LinkedIn. There are other benefits to being on LinkedIn. According to a recent article in WSJ.com, “One of the least recognized aspects of LinkedIn, says founder Reid Hoffman, is the fact that it allows people to help other people.” I personally like the Q&A feature of LinkedIn for this reason. Not only can you ask a question, but you can offer your expertise and help others.

According to Hoffman, Linkedin is an important part of the career search. I agree. He also asked an important question: “There are millions of other people out there. What do you do to put yourself in the right place for people to find you?”

I often give advice for things you can do to be found. LinkedIn is high on my list. However, if you are interested in finding out more ways to be found, check out some of my career videos.

For those of you who have taken a Myers-Briggs MBTI personality assessment, you may already know if you are an introvert or extrovert. It gets confusing to some as many say extrovert. Myers-Briggs uses the term extravert. What is important is that you understand the differences between how introverts and extroverts/extraverts prefer to process information. Why is this important to acing the job inteview? Watch the video below for more answers.

I was just watching a video by Marlo Thomas where she was asking people what they would do differently knowing what they know now. In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I included a chapter about this very subject. The following is an excerpt from that chapter where I discuss why I don’t think that many things we choose are really mistakes because they have led us to where we need to be now.

Think about the choices you made when you were young. Would you choose the same things now? Maybe not. Maybe you weren’t ready to take on the things you can now do. I doubt I would have been as good a professor if I hadn’t had the 25-plus years of experience in the working world to help me add to my lectures and discussions.

Perhaps that degree you got in Sociology or Education or some other field no longer interests you. Perhaps you need to go back and get more education in a new area of interest. People change and interests change. It’s OK to say that what you were interested in when you were 20 is not the same thing that interests you now.

One of the reasons we change is through the life lessons we learn. We may take a job that leads to another job that we had no intention of doing in the first place, but makes us much happier than we thought it would. You have to factor life experiences into the equation of what brought you to the place you are right now.

Check out why it is so important to understand how your emotional intelligence may impact your ability to get a job. If you are interested in reading the book by Daniel Goleman that I refer to here, it is called Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ. In our book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I write about the major personality tests that employers use. We include a very detailed chapter about the importance of understanding emotional intelligence in the workplace.

DESCRIPTION: Industry changes, job loss and work dissatisfaction has forced people to reinvent their careers. Finding a job that encompasses what you love, and embarks on personality strengths, is the ultimate goal in Dr. Diane Hamilton’s newest book, HOW TO REINVENT YOUR CAREER: MAKE MONEY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE (October 2010; $16.95)

Dr. Hamilton remained in the same company for 20 years until she found the power to leave and reinvent her career. She now does what she loves as an author, guest speaker and professor. Reinventing herself 10 times during her career, Dr. Hamilton used her personality preferences and experience to seek the career of her dreams. Readers of this guide will learn to identify their own personalities, to reinvent their careers, using life lessons as practical solutions.

Many people, over age 40 who are seeking new careers find that they are in unfamiliar territory. Many are displaced after being in one career or role for a long time. The job market has changed and so has job-seeking. Dr. Hamilton urges readers to take advantage of self-promotion and social networking through sites like LinkedIn. Some job seekers have been in the same field for decades and can maximize their potential career skills by seeking continuing education with free university content through iTunes-U. Dr. Hamilton highly recommends mastering the guidelines for today’s interviewing styles at The Business School Edge. Guided by a passion for your dream career, these outlets can effectively leverage the advantage of experience by increasing visibility within the job market.

Admittedly loving typing and administrative work, Dr. Hamilton took what she truly enjoyed and applied that to her dream job possibilities. Personality tests like and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and DISC are effective tools for new career seekers to use to point out jobs that may be a good fit for their personality preferences. In many cases, new employment seekers are unhappy with their current position, may desire a better job, but are unsure where to look for new opportunities. Each person can facilitate their career search through career analysis and take advantage of their job preferences to land their dream job.

Many job seekers looking to reinvent their careers are in positions others may regard as the “perfect job.” How many times does someone start a job for reasons that are fleeting and wind-up in familiar unhappy, Sunday Night Blues territory? What people must realize is, “that perhaps a perfect job for someone else may not be a perfect job for them,” says Hamilton. Many fear leaving jobs they may not like because they may feel trapped or fear giving up certain benefits. This attempt at trying to escape the golden handcuffs is a courageous one. With effort, readers will tap into their personality strengths, leverage the availability of online resources and face the fear of success to ultimately reinvent their careers and make more money doing what they love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Diane Hamilton has a doctorate in business management. She currently teaches bachelor-, master-, and doctoral-level courses for six online universities. She has written several books including The Online Student’s User Manual: Everything You Need to Know to be a Successful Online College Student, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality: Surviving and Thriving in the Modern Workplace and her latest HOW TO REINVENT YOUR CAREER: MAKE MONEY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE. To find out more about her writing, visit her website or blog.

In a recent talk I gave to CareerConnectors, we discussed how you can use a personal SWOT analysis to help you realize your strengths and weaknesses. This information can be very helpful in determining things to put on your resume and can also help you discover areas where you may need to improve.

I teach a lot of marketing classes where we talk about product placement. In a recent discussion we were talking about FedEx and the movie Castaway. I read that the company didn’t pay for that mention. I find that hard to believe but I guess it is possible.

I often include tips for my students to become better writers. If you are looking to hone your writing skills, I highly recommend a book by Paula LaRocque. LaRocque is the author of The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well. I wanted to write a blog highlighting the most important points from her book. However, it was difficult to choose from so many wonderful tips. I would suggest reading the entire book. For now, I’d like to include part of a quiz she uses to teach some common grammar mistakes. Check out the following examples to see if you would write correctly:

If I was rich, I’d do something about the homeless. This is incorrect.